Newtown back to winning ways, St. Pauls suffer first defeat of the season

On Feb 23, 2018

Share

By St. Kitts-Nevis Football Association

After back to back losses, Winners Circle Newtown United F.C. registered a narrow 1-0 win over Rams Village Superstars on Saturday night in the SKNFA National Bank Premier League at the Warner Park. Akimba Lawrence found the back of the net in the 66th min, after shrugging off two Village defenders with some ease, to notch the ball beyond Village’s goalkeeper almost against the run of play. Village labored all night to find the equalizer, but a resolute Newtown defense ensured that they were not going to drop points again, after a poor start to round 2 of the league season.

Village came close on a number of occasions, including an open chance from a corner kick spilled by Newtown’s goalkeeper.

However, the striker failed to find the target and kick the ball way over the crossbar. Village lived to rue that miss as the score remained 1-0. Newtown defender and last week’s goal scorer Yusuf Saunders said his team were a bit focused this week than in their previous matches and worked extensive on defending in training. “Just staying together as a team and just focus on and off the field. We have to see the game before the game. We just have to go out and execute the coaches’ instructions and here we are victorious again. Newtown is back,” Saunders said.

Saunder’s coach Anthony Net’s Isaac also acknowledged the improved defensive performance of his team this week. “Lately we have been given up some easy goals, makes us look like we are weak in the defensive area. So we did some work on the defensive side,” Isaac said.

Meanwhile, Raheim Francis of Village Superstars said they were sloppy in defense, hence the result of Saturday night’s match. “Newtown was more to the ball than us. We came out sloppy and we didn’t capitalize on our chances and it came back to haunt us,” Francis said.

Coach Jeffrey Hazel also felt the team did not come with a full energy needed to win this match, but believes all will be well for their next encounter. “We had some chances that went a begging and I thought we gave up a soft goal defensively…It’s not the display we usually put out,” he said, adding that it was a tough loss for his team.